a right Gael­ic time

Good­ness, where to start? We’re back, after a week in Ire­land and a day in Wales, with a suit­case full of FILTHY laun­dry (it’s dirty liv­ing in a 13th cen­tu­ry cas­tle, plus ponies, rolling on abbey lawns, count­less cook­ing adven­tures with salmon, pota­toes, cab­bage and oth­er sun­dries with­out an apron, net­tles, rain­storms, you name it), cats unbe­liev­ably grate­ful to see us (which I think speaks to Dory’s warm treat­ment of them while we were gone: if they had been lone­ly they’d pun­ish us). I just crawled out from under a duvet with two cats stretched out on my legs and if I had­n’t heard the *&^% sound of the wash­er telling me a load was ready to come out, I’d have stayed there all night.

We had the time of our lives. It start­ed a bit rocky drag­ging a puny, lur­gy (great Eng­lish word that; in my fam­i­ly we say “snorky” but it all means full of some­thing nasty in the head and chest) Avery with us. But she rallied.

I shall have lots more tomor­row, but feast your eyes on these pho­tographs. And feel for­tu­nate that the Irish accent I imme­di­ate­ly devel­oped (“stop pro­nounc­ing all those extras ts, Mum­my!” I heard quite soon) does­n’t come through on a blog. We are all col­laps­ing, this misty evening, but I’ll be back in fine form on the mor­row, sure and you’ve been miss­ing me…